Hebrew Poetics

In this paper, the author provides a literary reading of 2 Samuel 11:27-12:25, arguing that the author of 1 & 2 Samuel carefully crafts his narrative to demonstrate God's faithfulness to His promises and David's true repentance, with the result that God would still provide David with a sure house and victory over his enemies.

How were eighteenth-century dissenting women writers able to ensure their unique biblical interpretation was preserved for posterity? And how did their careful yet shrewd tactics spur early nineteenth-century women writers into vigorous theological debate? Why did the biblical engagement of such women prompt their commitment to causes such as the anti-slavery movement? Veiled Intent traces the pattern of tactical moves and counter-moves deployed by Anna Barbauld, Phillis Wheatley, Helen Maria Williams, Joanna Baillie and Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. These female poets and philosophers veiled provocative hermeneutical claims and calls for social action within aesthetic forms of discourse viewed as more acceptably feminine forms of expression. In between the lines of their published hymns, sonnets, devotional texts for children, and works of aesthetic theory, the perceptive reader finds striking theological insights shared from a particularly female perspective. These women were not only courageously interjecting their individual viewpoints into a predominantly male domain of formal study — biblical hermeneutics — but also intentionally supporting each other in doing so.  Their publications reveal they were drawn to biblical imagery of embodiment and birth, to stories of the apparently weak vanquishing the tyrannical on behalf of the oppressed, and to the metaphor of Christ as strengthening rock.

Psalm 24 is often seen to be a ‘bafling’ psalm due to the juxtaposition of what seems to be thematically and structurally disparate material (creation, vv. 1-2; torah and sanctuary, vv. 3-6; divine warrior and sanctuary, vv. 7-10). Most unusual, however, is the juxtaposition of the final two stanzas, for they seem to cancel each other out. In vv. 3-6, human beings desire access to God within the sanctuary, whereas in vv. 7-10 God himself is about to access the same location. Various poetic clues indicate that these two entrance scenes have been intentionally brought into parallelism with each other, yet no satisfactory answer has been presented as to the meaning of this manoeuvre. In this article, a poetic analysis is proposed that goes beyond those proffered thus far by looking at the way  in which the ‘poetic function’ creates a degree of ‘narrative’ self-referentiality within the psalm, in particular through its representation of time and space. The conclusion is that the psalm is a recalibration of liturgical material in terms of a grasp of the structure of the divine economy.

Psalm 24 is often seen to be a ‘baffling’ psalm due to the juxtaposition of what seems to be thematically and structurally disparate material (creation, vv. 1–2; torah and sanctuary, vv. 3–6; divine warrior and sanctuary, vv. 7–10). Most unusual, however, is the juxtaposition of the final two stanzas, for they seem to cancel each other out. In vv. 3–6, human beings desire access to God within the sanctuary, whereas in vv. 7–10 God himself is about to access the same location. Various poetic clues indicate that these two entrance scenes have been intentionally brought into parallelism with each other, yet no satisfactory answer has been presented as to the meaning of this manoeuvre. In this article, a poetic analysis is proposed that goes beyond those proffered thus far by looking at the way in which the ‘poetic function’ creates a degree of ‘narrative’ self-referentiality within the psalm, in particular through its representation of time and space. The conclusion is that the psalm is a recalibration of liturgical material in terms of a grasp of the structure of the divine economy.